Category Archives: Science

August 6, 2024 · 12:12

The loser iteration

Two days ago I wrote (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/08/04/the-judge-shouldnt/) with the headline ‘The judge shouldn’t’, it was part speculative and part what I see (again through my eyes it could be regarded as speculative). Today a mere 4 hours ago we get through the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0k44x6mge3o) ‘Google’s online search monopoly is illegal, US judge rules’. We are also given “Google was sued by the US Department of Justice in 2020 over its control of about 90% of the online search market.”, so lets take a look back. It started in 1995 and the ‘idea’ was completed in 1997. To turn about the setting in those days Microsoft was merely badgering their lack of knowledge and lam Netscape to get a browser dominance. Two youthful young sprouts namely Larry Page and Sergei Brin were ahead of the pack by a lot. They looked to a solution to search for text in publicly accessible documents offered by web servers, as opposed to other data. Microsoft was still trying to type words like HTTP and the clever people at Microsoft were able to type FTP. In the age of information the Google founders figured a few things out like ‘What are people trying to find’ this was against the grain for Microsoft who thought that corporations were the key and they went to ‘What are corporations willing to pay for’. The subtle difference is that Microsoft was working towards a slice of the $18,843,980,000,000 revenue that the fortune 500 represent. Google on the other hand decided to cater to its 31,000,000 employees. As such one could (oversimplified) cater to the simple fact that it would take Microsoft 9 million years to get as much data as Google. I do emphasis the oversimplification of this. I was not on the mindset of Google at first. You see I was a dedicated Yahoo user. It took 3 years until I saw that Google offered more and better result. As such in 3 years they gained a dominance. They surpassed Yahoo, Excite, Alta Vista and several other players. We can argue that it helped that Microsoft demolished Netscape. And in the decade that followed Google grew in strength and ability to cater to actual users not the CFO’s of 500 corporations. 

So when we see “It is one of several lawsuits that have been filed against the big tech companies as US antitrust authorities attempt to strengthen competition in the industry.” I believe that there is another ploy in play. The mediocrity losers (like Microsoft) want a slice of the cake they have no business being in. It isn’t just the ‘competition’ it is a reversal of technology that is in play. And in that setting the US is damaging the little benefit they have and leaving it all to China and true Chinese innovators like Huawei and Tencent. I reckon that by 2026 the mobile market will be overrun with Huawei in almost every non-americano place. They threw away the benefits when they forced Huawei to release HarmonyOS 5 years ago. 

Now we see that it is available in 77 languages and the turnover (as is) is getting stronger. Even now as EU nations are discarding the fear mongering of anti-China sentiment by American administration, and the strongest response that the EU nations give is ‘Show us evidence’, America has no answer to that other than debatable setting of ‘could’ and ‘expected’ whilst the evidence just isn’t there. And as we see an optional release this year of HarmonyOS NEXT, Android’s bough get broken on their sibling turning adult. So good luck with that.

Now we see a Judge giving us that there is a monopoly setting. I am not debating that (a lack of evidence I have), but the setting that we get from ““Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Judge Mehta wrote in his 277-page opinion” as I see it, the maintenance of a unique field dominance is begotten by the lack of innovation by people like Microsoft who is spreading itself way too thin.  As evidence I ‘present’ Xbox, Solarwinds, CrowdStrike and the list goes on. You see ‘breaking up’ is merely a first step. They will then open the door and the abusive bully (Microsoft) will gleefully shout “Can I play here too?” With a debilitating browser called ‘Edge’. How is that progress? Don’t get me wrong if there is a decent player that can keep up with Google, even Google will applaud that. My worry is that the ideological setting of letting everyone in the sandbox play is all fine, but there is a reason that mothers do not allow toddlers in a sandbox until they reach a certain age. And bar them from playing when they get too old. The worry that I have is that this setting stops Google from evolving beyond the cookie (which is fine by the exploitative advertisers). The setting of other people’s greed who cannot evolve into newer territories. This could now allow Huawei and Tencent to gain even more innovative sides to push into markets where American stage are auto rejected. Tencent is on the cliffhanger to introduce their solution to 150,000,000 homes and they can get there by 2027. 

This will leave Microsoft in a stage where it has no options and no future. As these Fortune 500 will find ways to rise to new frontiers we will see them seeking IBM and Amazon solutions catering a larger downfall of Microsoft. In that stage there is certain a decent amount of space for Google. As they will hand a corporate solution to their ‘office’ suite Microsoft will lose more grounds. The only thing that keeps them up for some time is Excel. But the world is changing what was once a spreadsheet world now becomes an AWS environment and Google can cater there too. I do think that Googles forced push to breaking up is not a great solution, but Google has overcome harder challenges. 

This and my previous article ‘The judge shouldn’t’ gives us the premise that the Antitrust laws are possibly a little obsolete. Microsoft sees this as their ticket in and it is willing to cater to this as it hurts Apple and Google. Two parts the US desperately needs to work at optimum to stop themselves of being overrun by Chinese innovators. You see 7 years ago ByteDance introduced TikTok (not a Peter Pan crocodile). In 7 years it became a near equal of YouTube that was in play 12 years longer. Now I get that YouTube paved the was, but that is the usual tracks for New innovators, they go over the backs from those who went before. Now consider that and the fact that HarmonyOS is about to go toe to toe with Android in only 4 years. That is what I wrong. Not that we think about antitrust. I partially agree with antitrust sentiments. But we need to see that the greed driven use it to keep up, or not to lose their revenue. But that was never the concern of Google (or Apple for that matter). As I see it in the last decade the face of technology was set by Amazon (AWS), Apple (MacWares), Google (Android, G-wares) and IBM (large solutions and Quantum) they create the innovations, players like Microsoft should go under and seek revenue from the Fortune 500. They were the bees knees weren’t they? 

But as I see it, US District Judge Amit Mehta is allowed by law to hand it all over to Chinese innovators. When the EU, Commonwealth nations, Africa and Asia allow these innovator into their governments America becomes a party of one (with 330 million consumers). So consider that the other regions has over 7,500 million people. As I see it it is a hard lesson that America learns twice. Wasn’t the Google premise of 1997 not enough?

Enjoy your day and ponder what benefit was to be had from optionally breaking up Google and who were the actual beneficiaries (not the consumers clearly).

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Law, Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

August 5, 2024 · 13:28

How right I was

I knew I was right. It wasn’t merely my own conviction of self, it was the exposure of two sets of ‘evidence’ as given by some media. The first was my view of gaming, mobile gaming to be presenting the ‘evidence’ Even as it was an ‘advertising’ of the events. It still shows that I was right. You see gaming always pushing the view forward and they forgot what they left behind. I tried to warn Amazon of this, but did they listen? I fear not. Yet that setting now gives Tencent an approachable 5 billion annually as well as give their Tencent Cloud Streaming Services (CSS) an option to not just break into cloud streaming, they also could be handing their TGP (Tencent Gaming Platform) Box a play for the title role in gaming platforms within a year. As it goes forward the TGP will not be an unknown, it will grace third position nearly instantly with only Sony and Nintendo to pass afterwards. I reckon that within 2-3 years it will surpass Sony and Nintendo after that. The benefit for Tencent will not be replacing these two, it will mean that they will be placed next to either or in some cases both. That was the setting that Amazon faced. Yet whilst they heralded ‘Amazon Luna adds more than 40 new games, all from GOG’ last month, they failed to see the larger picture and now Tencent and their TGP are optionally set in a world where they surpass the streaming game providers nearly instantly. Amazon only had to look at the historic market and considered what was possible. Yet their executives didn’t look (apparently) further than the length of their nose and non of them had the nose of Cyrano de Bergerac (or C.D. Bales for that matter). The resulting setting is that Tencent (or as the US fears, China) now gets a new area with gaming Europe and the Middle East as new customers. Another field that the US (with assistance of a short sighted Microsoft) where they hand the keys to a Chinese company. And they did this to themselves. I opened the door by informing Amazon in November 2022 that this field was approachable and ready. So what do we see three days ago in the Financial Review? They title ‘Amazon shares drop as AI costs spook market’ is merely one part, the underlying “investors have signalled growing impatience with tech companies’ efforts to profit from their massive investments in AI”, as well as “Andy Jassy has been cutting costs and focusing on profitability in Amazon’s main online retail business while spending heavily on AI services, which the company has said represent a “multibillion-dollar revenue run rate business”” and all along (for at least 21 months of options towards an estimated $5,000,000,000 annual revenue ignored. How that for captaincy of a ‘Big Tech’ company? And as I saw the gaming precedency go in all directions except for the right one I see that my vision was correct all along.

In a place here they got to drill into new customer places they handed it all to the Chinese opponents. Yay to shortsightedness. 

The second part is a little harder to spot if you do not look in the right direction. That being said, there are a few debatable sights to that. In the first it is my interpretation of these layered facts and if proven right it is less of an issue. Yet I believe that Facebook set the larger premise by not properly investigating the ‘evidence’ they claimed. Their short sighted overseeing hat is going on (relying on ‘their’ AI) and not properly looking at the ‘rules’ or policies they have implemented now gives rise to an altering consumer base that could skip town (their platform), optionally handing a decent chunk of their customer base to Tencent as well. It will not drown them. But answer me this, if you have to report that 10% is skipping your platform. How many shareholders will be happy with the underlying speculated statistics that we get is “The company estimates that 4-5% of those accounts are fake, meaning there may be as many as 150 million fake accounts.” these are the numbers from Facebook. Yet the ‘reality’ from some is that it is 10%-15%. Now consider that these numbers remain and the percentage over the 100% base becomes a number over their ‘new’ 90% base. As such the new base is that it becomes 111% and I believe that 120% is more realistic. Now consider that every investor paying X mounts of dollars now hands their money to 8.3% non valid accounts. It sets the new premise to nearly one out of 10 advertisements misses the target completely. How long until they have to drop prices or actually resolve that issue whilst millions are going somewhere else. That was the second premise that Amazon missed and now we have a massive larger issue. Tencent seemingly has a larger target. In the first to gain their new consumer base all over the world and Facebook (and others) start losing market share. If you think this is nothing ask Microsoft (edge) how they faired against Chrome and whilst they will deny any losses consider that Edge only has a 5% market share against Chrome 65% and Safari 18%. Take that into the settings. Considering that Tencent has a larger reason to promote Harmony OS. A stage that would make China happy as a clam. It will not have a short term impact in view, but in this all Android users in several nations will now have an option to switch Android devices. And the Apple case that is before these courts (se yesterdays article) merely strengthens the premise. I reckon that the Eastern Europe, African, Asian and Middle Eastern countries have a first impact and in that setting  America is the first to lose global market share. This last bit I gave you is highly speculative, but as my settings are confirmed I feel that this is a direction is a valid one. And it is all founded on two players (Amazon and Facebook) let is happen on their watch. Don’t believe me, feel free to read the articles I put on my blog from November 30th 2022 onwards (and several before that). The captains of industry and their governmental tools believed their own spin (read: marketing BS) and took what they spun as ‘truth’. All whilst there were visible parties out there. 

Granted, I am talking in my own street and that is also debatable, but you could read up and conclude for yourself. As such two elements handing billions of revenue that certain players left lying on the floor and I have no non-existent AI, merely my own noggin and it is working fine, thank you very much.

Enjoy this Monday.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Gaming, IT, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

August 4, 2024 · 21:00

The judge shouldn’t

I have two things on my mind. The first is the Olympics. I do not follow it every second, but I was ‘witness’ to two events. The first is a Canadian swimmer, I refer to her as Funny Flounder. I have a thing for alliteration. It is Summer McIntosh. This 17 year young swimmer, on her first Olympic challenge got 3 golden medals and one silver one, she also broke a few of her own world records. I reckon that over the next 6 Olympics she will win a lot more. It is amazing that any person at that age can have so much drive and focus. I know I have focus, but I could never achieve that result in any discipline, not even when I was in the height of my fencing days. Then there was the Dutch Femke Bol. I saw her in the last half of the leg she did, going from 4th to 1st and win the golden medal. I have never seen such an achievement and I am happy I did now. Yet, this was not what was occupying my mind. 

On my mind was the article (at https://www.khaleejtimes.com/business/tech/apple-asks-us-judge-to-toss-antitrust-lawsuit) where we see ‘Apple asks US judge to toss antitrust lawsuit’ we are given that it is one of five blockbuster monopoly cases pending against Big Tech companies. It was a story originally by Reuters. We are given “a lawsuit by federal and state antitrust regulators accusing it of illegally monopolising the smartphone market, saying the case would have a judge redesign its popular iPhone”. Fist off, I am not an expert on anti trust lawsuits and it will probably show in a moment.

I stand by Apple in this case. You see these people are in a wrong state of mind (and then some). I do not have an iPhone, I am an Android person and I will remain an Android person. I have nothing against Apple, I have had an iPad since the very first generation in 2010, it my present from me to me to use in University. It never let me down and in 2020 I replaced it with the iPad Air. 

The first never let my down until it was replaced and I am happy with this one too. So I do like the iOS system. My issue was that the world was eager to play down the iPhone for too much and in an age of wannabe’s thinking of their ego we saw the iPhone take the market by storm. It pretty much destroyed Nokia, Motorola and Microsoft (yes they had a mobile once). It headed ahead of Samsung (a brand I hate) and made short work of Google Pixel and Huawei with their assortment of mobiles. Actually the US government reduced the market share of Huawei. So to these antitrust regulators I state ‘Screw you’ (with a clear lack of anti trust laws). You see whilst the others were propagating their own ego’s and hide behind marketing presentations that were there to ‘appease’ the share holders, Apple did something else, they approached the customers, they listened and approach clients with presentations and newish innovation. So whilst they did that and released the ear buds and the smartwatches, the people looked and listened and joined the iPhone crowd. And there is more, The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 has ben around for a while, so where were they when Netscape was murdered by Microsoft? We have United States of America v. Microsoft Corporation, 253 F. 34 as well as the overturning in 2001, after 11 years in court. There is a difference. Apple created iOS in a presumed (by me) towards the IoT (Internet of Things) and Apple has always heralded interconnectivity on their systems. I have two really bad issues with Apple, but not with my iPod and iPad, they always functioned perfectly. 

This matters, because the US regulators are apparently fond of shooting themselves in the foot. 

And that is what will happen if a judge redesigns its popular iPhone. And the setting (as I see it) is that they never minded anything as Apple stayed in its niche market, but now with the smart phone it is different. You see ever since I looked into matters (around 2011) I saw that the stage was going to change. Mobile devices were going to be generic with optional simplified hardware, the power as going to be the software. So 5 devices and one program solution and for the most that is coming to pass. We have Apple, Google, Huawei and Samsung for the most and Microsoft is out of THAT race. The lag that Motorola and Nokia have are just too big. So when I see “The Justice Department, 19 states and Washington, D.C., accuse Apple of an illegal monopoly on smartphones maintained by imposing contractual restrictions on, and withholding critical access from, developers” I say ‘bollocks’ The issue is who are the iOS developers? In 2011 I have cess to the development kits of Apple (schoolwork) and I never entertained it other than the assignments I had. I was an Apple user, not a developer (I regret that a little right now). 

So when we see “an illegal monopoly on smartphones” I say that this is not an illegal monopoly, it is a system setting that they selected, other than Android (Google, Huawei, Samsung) and Windows (Microsoft), actually I am hard to keep a straight face when setting Windows on a mobile phone. Can you imagine the CrowdStrike damage mobile phones might have had to endure? Oh and when we see this did anyone consider the consequences that were on IBM, who basically forced people to rely on IBM hardware. Perhaps HP can rephrase the nightmare they faced on IBM with their printers. 

There is a second tier to this all, we need to consider that The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 is no longer the best way to go about this for more and more devices. As the mobiles become more generic and it will be on the software to trample a path into this all. When we consider that Google now has the Pixel 8a, Pixel 8 Pro, Pixel 8, Pixel Watch 2, Pixel Fold, Pixel Tablet. At least three of these systems are nearly identical, they have 1-2 processors difference. Their difference becomes the software. But that is now, I expect in the next 2-3 years that there will be more devices all powered by the same software and optionally the connecting devices (through the mobile phones) . The lawmakers of 1890 would have never expected this and the differences will grow even more.  And a prime example here is Microsoft. We now get “All you’ll need is a compatible Fire TV Stick, a Bluetooth-enabled wireless controller, and an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription to stream Xbox games. Microsoft is working to allow Xbox Cloud Gaming to stream your entire Xbox library, and not just titles that are part of Game Pass.” Did anyone consider “a compatible Fire TV Stick”? So how long until they revamp the gaming industry with that solution? How long until they (a speculative view) impede devices through that connection where an error stops the Sony Playstation or Nintendo Switch to no longer with with their software because (speculative) software by Microsoft impeded it? Oh, they’ll be all apologetic, but the damage will have been done. We see (at Microsoft) “The Program Install and Uninstall troubleshooter helps you automatically repair issues when you’re blocked from installing or removing programs. It also fixes corrupted registry keys”, so this issue has been around from Windows 7 (2009), and was still around in Windows 10 (2015), so it was an issue for at least 6 years. Do we really want them to get involved? Come to think of it, l I would be on the first plane to Shenzhen if it comes to that. Oh and I haven’t even considered the damage that solution would do to the Amazon Luna. Apple had a solution and it has propagated that solution to all things Apple. They marketed their solution widely and innovatively and innovation is what is missed in many Big Tech companies. Too give another example, last year Apple did something Awesome. We see a meeting with a youthful young sprout (Tim Cook) reporting to Gaia and getting lectured by her. The brilliance was that plenty of companies took a paragraph out of their time to publish that they are on track to be carbon zero. Apple made it a presentation (advertisement) whilst giving a report of their directions. It was funny and it was pretty brilliant. Google and Amazon missed the boat and there was no value in copying that. So that is the innovative presentations that are Apple. The bigger picture is that mobile phones are presented through marketing and Apple marketing slaps the marketing of Google and Samsung. So we see “an illegal monopoly on smartphones” all whilst the others aren’t doing their bit to keep up (or seemingly keep up), so why punish Apple for that?

As I see it the judge has to toss the case, of not for the logic then for the reality that if this setting is pushed and Microsoft steps in, then we come to the conclusion that the US government is merely a tools for Microsoft to stop it from collapsing on itself (my personal view).

Well that was me today. 190 minutes from Monday here now, Vancouver is still pre Sunday breakfast. Have a fun day everyone.

1 Comment

Filed under IT, Law, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

July 31, 2024 · 16:40

It was never rocket science

Yup, that is the gist of it. And it seems that people are starting to wake up. You see the biggest issue I have had with any mention of AI, is that it doesn’t (yet) exist. People can shout AI on every corner, but soon the realisation comes in that they were wrong all the time will hurt them, it will hurt them badly. And this is merely a sideline to the issue. The issue is Microsoft and lets get through some articles.

1. Microsoft says cyber-attack triggered latest outage
The first one is (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c903e793w74o) where we see “It comes less than two weeks after a major global outage left around 8.5 million computers using Microsoft systems inaccessible, impacting healthcare and travel, after a flawed software update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. While the initial trigger event was a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack… initial investigations suggest that an error in the implementation of our defences amplified the impact of the attack rather than mitigating it,” said an update on the website of the Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform.” The easiest way of explaining this is to compare Azure to a ball. A foot ball has (usually) 12 regular pentagons and 20 regular hexagons. They are stitched together. Now under normal conditions this is fine. However software is not any given shape, implying that a lot more stitches are required. Now consider that Microsoft 365 is used by over a million corporations. Now consider that a lot of them do not use the same configuration. This implies that we have thousand of differently stitched balls and the stitches is where it can go wrong. This is where we see the proverbial “the implementation of our defences amplified the impact of the attack rather than mitigating it” Microsoft has been so driven by using it all, that they merely advance the risk. And it doesn’t end here. CrowdStrike is another example. We see the news and the fake one person claiming responsibility for it. Yet the reality is that there is a lot more wrong than anyone is considering. These two events pretty much prove that Microsoft has policy and procedure flaws. It is easy to blame Microsoft, but the reality is that we see spin and the trust in Microsoft is pretty much gone. People say “Microsoft’s cloud revenue was 39.3% higher”, yes this is the case, and considering that Amazon was originally a ‘bookshop’, so they went against the larger techies like IBM and Microsoft and they got 31% of the global market share. Not bad for a bookshop. And the equation gets worse for Microsoft, these two events could cost them up to 10% market share. In which direction these 10% go is another matter. AWS is not alone here. 

I was serious about not letting Microsoft near my IP. I had hoped that Amazon would take it (they have the Amazon Luna) but it seems that Andy Jesse is not hungry for an additional 5 billion annually (in the first stage). 

And as Microsoft adds more and more to their arsenal these problems will become more frequent and inflicts damage on more of their customers. Do I have evidence? No, but it wasn’t hard and my example might give you the consideration to ponder where you could/should go next. 

2. Microsoft Earnings: Stock Tanks As AI Business Growth Worse Than Expected
In the second story we see (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2024/07/30/microsoft-earnings-stock-tanks-as-ai-business-growth-worse-than-expected/) that Forbes is giving us “shares of Microsoft cratered about 7% following the earnings announcement, already nursing a more than 8% decline over the last three weeks” with the added “Microsoft’s crucial AI businesses was worse than expected, as its 29% growth in its Azure cloud computing unit fell short of projections of 31%, and sales in its AI-heavy intelligent cloud division was $28.5 billion, below estimates of $28.7 billion” As stated by me (as well as plenty of others) there is no AI. You see AI would give the program thinking skills, they do not have any. They kind of speculate and they have lots of scenario to give you the conditional feeling that they are talking “in your street” but that is not the case. For this simple illustration we get Wired (at https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-ai-copilot-chatbot-election-conspiracy/) giving us ‘Microsoft’s AI Chatbot Replies to Election Questions With Conspiracies, Fake Scandals, and Lies’, so how does this work? You see the program (LLM) looks at what ‘we’ search for, yet in this the setting is smudged by conspiracy theorists, troll farms and influencers. The first two push the models out of synch. Wired gives us “Research shared exclusively with WIRED shows that Copilot, Microsoft’s AI chatbot, often responds to questions about elections with lies and conspiracy theories.” Now consider that this is pushed onto all the other systems. Then we are treated to “Microsoft’s AI chatbot is responding with out-of-date or incorrect information”, so not only is the data wrong, it is out of date, as I see it what they call ‘training data’ is as I see it incorrect, out of data and unverified. How AI is that? A actual real AI is set on a Quantum computer (IBM has that, although in its infancy) a more robust version of shallow circuits (not sure if we are there yet) and is driven not by binary systems but framed on an Ypsilon particle system, which was proven by a Dutch physicist around 2020 (I forgot the name). This particle has another option. We currently have NULL, Zero and One. The Ypsilon particle has NULL, Zero, One and BOTH. A setting that changes everything.

But the implementation into servers is to be expected around 2037 (a speculation by me) then we get to the thinking programs and an actual AI. So when we see AI, we need to see that is a program that can course through data and give you the most likely outcome. I will admit that for a lot of people it will fit, but not for all and there we get the problem. You see Microsoft will blame all sources and all kind of people, but in the end it will be up to the programmer to show their algorithm is correct and as I am telling you now that it comes down to unverified data. How does that come over to you? 

When you consider that Wired also gave us “it listed numerous GOP candidates who have already pulled out of the race.” The issue of how out of date data is becomes clear. We see all these clever options that others give us, but when some LLM (labeled AI) is un-updated and unreliable, how secure remains your position when you base decision making streams on the wrong data? And that is merely a sales track. 

The last teaspoon is given to us by The Guardian. The Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/06/microsoft-ai-explicit-image-safety) gave us on March 7th 2024:

3. Microsoft ignored safety problems with AI image generator, engineer complains
So when you consider the previous parts (especially CrowdStrike) “Shane Jones said he warned management about the lack of safeguards several times, but it didn’t result in any action” Microsoft will state that this is another issue. But I spoke about wrong data, out of date data and unverified data. And now we see that the lack of safeguards and inaction would make things worse and a lot faster than you think. You see as long as there is no real AI, all data needs to be verified and that does not seem to be the case in too many setting. I spoke about policy issues and procedural issues. Well here we get the gist “it didn’t result in any action” and we keep on seeing issues with Microsoft. So how many times will you face this? And that is before people realise that their IP are on Azure servers. So how many procedural flaws will your research we driven into until it is all on a Russian or Chinese or North Korean enabled server (most likely by Russia or China, which is a speculation by me).

As such, it was never rocket science, look at any corporation and in their divisions there will always be one person who thinks of number one (himself) and in that setting how safe are you? 

There is a reason that I do not want Microsoft near my IP. I can only hope that someone waked up and give me a nice retirement present ($30M post taxation would be nice).

Enjoy the day.

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

July 30, 2024 · 21:03

Rules of the game

It isn’t a statement, it is actually a question. You see, something caught my eye in Al Jazeera today. The article (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/7/30/why-are-conservatives-claiming-google-is-covering-up-the-shooting-of-trump) gives us ‘Why are conservatives claiming Google is covering up the shooting of Trump?’. I took a look and I noticed the given “Google has come under fire from conservatives in the United States amid claims that the tech giant is suppressing information about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in order to influence the presidential election.” Then we see “Google on Monday told NBC News that autocomplete was “not working as intended for some searches about the names of several past presidents and the current vice president”.”

My issue is that there are other matters not being taken into account. I have partial knowledge of this and. Wonder on the stage we are facing. The first stage are the conservatives, the second stage are the influencers and the conspiracy theorists. Let me explain as best as I can. 

We can search for something direct [attempted assassination of Donald Trump] then we have the option [assassination + ”Donald Trump”] they are not the same you see the first one also gives use anything related to ‘attempted’ as such any combination of [attempted, assassination, of, Donald, Trump] will be caught in this. The problem is that the influencers know this, the conspiracy theorists know this and they are always try to put ‘their story’ above all the others. These two groups have elevated their knowledge of the search routines and the in’s and out’s above all others. Because they need their story to come on top.

Now consider these two groups, do you think that they influence the outcome? So when we see “autocomplete was “not working as intended”” the question becomes how to see ‘not working as intended’ I wonder how the other players influenced the ‘not working as intended’. I do not think that Google did anything wrong (speculation on my side), I think that there is more into this. You see what evidence do the Conservatives have? 

So do you think that Kansas Senator Roger Marshall who also accused Google of suppressing information looked into the whole range of this? I doubt it. These man tend to have less than an hour a day to look into matters. The Google setting requires close to a week of several people dedicated to search and autocomplete. Consider the small setting that the world has thousands of dedicated Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) people. Do you think that Google will mess around with that, or is it likely that these thousands as well as the influencers and conspiracy theorists have found a loophole that sets them above all others and when that is the case is there a clear case of malignant Google messing with an autocomplete. The last part is that it is ‘autocomplete’ as such the search could (or should) have been given completely and not via an autocomplete. Oh, and an autocomplete is relying on an anticipated result, yet when these results are pushed by SEO’s, influencers and Conspiracy theorists, what are the changes that the model sways?

All settings that could (not a given) been an influence and there is nothing of that in the Al Jazeera article. But in all this Kansas Senator Roger Marshall got his limelight. So I wonder how many holes I can shoot in that case, after all Donald Trump merely got his ear pierced and not by a qualified piercer. 

Oh and before we end this story, lets not forget that the conservatives use any option they can to get some limelight, did anyone take that into account as well?

Enjoy the day Monday is almost over for me, Vancouver will follow in 17 hours.

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Media, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

July 29, 2024 · 11:44

A granny named Smith

Yup, it is time to bitch about Apple products. This should be future Apple products. You see for some time I have seen that Apple has been in a wrong course. Lets not talk about to MacBook Pro. That thing actually looks phenomenal, every bit is seemingly impressive. And even though I cannot afford it (at present) the idea of a 96GB RAM with 8TB storage is overwhelming, it is a bit much (not my needs). Yet storage is what every one needs and I would be content with 4TB (and 64GB RAM). That being said, the iMac doesn’t even come close to it.

So as I saw Matt Talks Tech today, I saw the ‘announcement’ of what is to be (in about 16 weeks) and it is not good. As we see Apple doesn’t seem to learn at all. They give the ‘new users’ up to 24GB RAM, which is in many cases enough. It is the storage, still a mere 2TB. For many it would be enough. Yet the settings of 100MP camera’s is setting a new premise. Medium format in the digital field is calling new professionals and then there are the YouTubers and TikTokkers. They will all need Adobe solutions. And the full Adobe users with other software will soon find out that their 2TB hole is filled with the frustration of multiple connections. That is not why I would buy a desktop. They are throwing their market to PC (and Microsoft) troubles. What is up? Apple becomes a sour apple, a Granny Smith. Sour and meant for senile fossils, the newly adapted age of digital influencers is seemingly totally ignored.

The fact that there is no option for 4TB. We know that not everyone needs it, but any Digital streamer or medium format photographer has only the MacBook Pro. They need to be able to set to a desktop screen working in comfort, and the iMac no longer provides. They should have provided for that last year. There is some consideration that this could have come later, but the M4 news shows that the iMac just isn’t up to it (speculation by me). What are they doing? Leaving it all to Dell and HP? 

As somewhat dubiously stated by me, 96GB is a lot, even in digital edition. I would consider 32GB, even that cannot be provided for as the media tells us. More important there is no mention of set aside upgrades by Apple (32GB RAM, 4TB storage), as such whatever they gained in niche markets they are throwing away to the niche graphic designers. These people only have the MacBook Pro to look forward to. This is great, but when you are working at home, it just doesn’t cook the goose. And the setting that it is due in 16 weeks and for another year people have no real option is disturbing, because this implies that the iMac is pretty much done for. No mention of an iMac Pro either. Apple needs to revisit their presentations and what they have coming and they need to do it really fast.
They are opening the market (that they catered to for the longest time) to Asus, HP and Dell. 

So am I right? The idea that Apple is now becoming the sour Apple no one really wants is a bad move to be considering. I stated this before (last year). There are roughly “64 million YouTube creators” at present. Now they don’t all need high end solution, but most of them want something more comfortable than a laptop screen. Even is only 1% needs high end equipment, that still amounts to 640,000 users. I didn’t ever consider the 1,300,000 TikTok creators, many of them are also on YouTube. Oh and when you consider 1% is too low, the losses to Apple get to be worse. I am pretty sure that Asus likes this setting, but when we see that Apple is lowering their expectations, can we be sure this is valid? The second side to this is that the iMac cannot meet these needs, does that mean that the Tim Cook presentations of ‘innovations’ are still valid?

So this seems like a bitch moment (by me) but consider the needs of the many (well over 640K of them). Are they getting deserted by Apple? Oh and the larger Data miners, who all need storage space, how are they served? It seems to me that Apple has been dropping the ball yet again. Perhaps they should adapt the Microsoft logo? (Me rolling on the floor laughing)

Enjoy Monday, apart from the people living in Nova Scotia and eastern from there. They are still on Sunday.

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Media, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

July 26, 2024 · 04:42

The misaligned cogs

This is a little hard. I just read an article on the Military hacks by North Korea, it doesn’t fit. Let me explain with a little time line.

2012
The Dutch had a press tour in North Korea. The Koreans confiscated temporary their camera’s and the Dutch were howling with laughter, they still had their iPhones and Android equivalents. They kept on filming. The Korean officers had no idea what a smartphone was, as such the Dutch had all the footage.

2014
Sony get hacked and soon thereafter we get all kinds of ‘leaked’ information. In addition within a year (I have no specific date) we get an amalgamated

The FBI later clarified more details of the attacks, attributing them to North Korea by noting that the hackers were “sloppy” with the use of proxy IP addresses that originated from within North Korea. At one point the hackers logged into the Guardians of Peace Facebook account and Sony’s servers without effective concealment. FBI Director James Comey stated that Internet access is tightly controlled within North Korea, and as such, it was unlikely that a third party had hijacked these addresses without allowance from the North Korean government. The National Security Agency assisted the FBI in analysing the attack, specifically in reviewing the malware and tracing its origins; NSA director Admiral Michael S. Rogers agreed with the FBI that the attack originated from North Korea. A disclosed NSA report published by Der Spiegel stated that the agency had become aware of the origins of the hack due to their own cyber-intrusion on North Korea’s network that they had set up in 2010, following concerns of the technology maturation of the country.

The sources were the New York Times, Times magazine, The verge and CNBC. I had issues with the release of information, but my issues were speculative and based on the Dutch field trip to Korea

2017
In ‘The Good, the Bad, and North Korea’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2017/09/30/the-good-the-bad-and-north-korea/) I wrote “I got this photo from a CNN source, so the actual age was unknown, yet look at the background, the sheer antiquity that this desktop system represents. In a place where the President of North Korea should be surrounded by high end technology, we see a system that seems to look like an antiquated Lenovo system, unable to properly play games from the previous gaming generation, and that is their high technology?” This is my second opposition. Between 2012 and 2017 they had apparently gained the ability to produce their own smartphone. This is realistic.

2024
Now we get “North Korean hackers have conducted a global cyber espionage campaign to try to steal classified military secrets to support Pyongyang’s banned nuclear weapons programme, the United States, Britain and South Korea said in a joint advisory on Thursday.

The hackers, dubbed Anadriel or APT45 by cybersecurity researchers, have targeted or breached computer systems at a broad variety of defence or engineering firms, including manufacturers of tanks, submarines, naval vessels, fighter aircraft, and missile and radar systems, the advisory said” (at https://www.reuters.com/world/north-korean-hackers-are-stealing-military-secrets-us-allies-say-2024-07-25/).

My issue (still speculation) is two fold. In the first we get to se that the Sony Hack was apparently not North Korea, but the Guardians of peace (the Lazarus group). We see references to “links to” and a small byte that they are “Originally a criminal group”. It is my speculation that these criminal ‘masterminds’ are either Russian or Chinese. They cater to North Korea as it allows them to act freely and I would expect them to share whatever intel they get with North Korea.

Even if these formerly known criminals were behind this setting, the whole picture doesn’t add up. I reckon that we all work at our own speed, however when we see Reuters give us “one elite group of North Korean hackers had successfully breached systems at NPO Mashinostroyeniya, a rocket design bureau based in Reutov, a small town on the outskirts of Moscow.” I do not debunk that setting, but over the timeline I have seen (many might have seen it), it is possible that this last statement is a smokescreen. Was it breached or were the Russians willing to hand over that ‘victory’ to make them sound more of a threat? In addition when we see “The hackers, dubbed Anadriel or APT45 by cybersecurity researchers, have targeted or breached computer systems at a broad variety of defence or engineering firms, including manufacturers of tanks, submarines, naval vessels, fighter aircraft, and missile and radar systems” I mostly worry about the state of cyber security at our own shores. That they get breached by China or Russia is understandable, They are on par in technology with us. North Korea is not. It is like a hacker with an 80282 AT computer, a processor from 1982 coming up to a server with a Xeon processor stating ‘gimme your data’ It is like a swimmer slamming a great white shark with a BB gun. Utterly ineffective. That is merely the hardware, These hackers would have lacked at least a decade of hacking skills. The NSA and GCHQ would be running circles around them. No, I believe that this is another player making North Korea their patsy. 

Now consider that all (or some) of my speculations are wrong. I get that, this is realistically possible, we still get the stage that the time line doesn’t fit. It is like going from an Apricot PC, to an IBM Q System One in a little over 7 years, without the required resources mind you. The other, more realistic, option is that defence and engineering firms have made a booboo and failed their cyber security requirements and now all avenues are racing to hide these facts. 

Can North Korea get to this point? Yes, that is possible, but it seems to me that ‘western’ criminals are using that place to hide their actions and loot whatever they can, whilst they part time hack into places and hand these secrets over to North Korea. OK, I am still speculating. However, remember that building in Russia filled with hackers? Russian forces had to intervene there. It seems to me that these hackers would like another place to work from. It doesn’t make China innocent either. They might have the same issues and these hackers also need a place to work from. In this story, I merely come to the speculated conclusion that the term ‘North Korean Hacker’ is almost an newly seen oxymoron. 

In all this the cogs are not aligned. In 1776 native American Indians got their hands on rifles. It took time to get good with them. In 1877 Satsuma Rebellion, led by Saigo Takamori faced Japanese forces with modern weapons, it took them time to adequately use these weapons. With the complexity of a system the time line expands. The timeline expands even more when excellence of a system is required. As such I feel that these technology skills do not fit the abilities of the North Koreans. But that is merely my point of view.

Have a great Friday, another 150 minutes until I have breakfast.

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Media, Military, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

July 19, 2024 · 19:18

A second visit

Well, it might have been a third time that I take a view towards an altered IP. This isn’t mine, it’s actually the property of Microsoft. The first game (Mass Effect) was released in 2007 and Mass Effect 2 was released in 2010. Mass Effect 2 is still regarded by many (and me) as one of the greatest tactical shooters. Mass Effect 3 is good, but it also gave us the greatest multi player shooters ever made. These two elements are the grounds of the massive fanbase of the series. 

The present we got at the launch party is still regarded by me as the coolest ever (see above), all the guests got one with themselves as the SPECTRE agent. 

At the end of game 3 there were a lot of complaints. I think that one was shoddy to some effect and it should have been set better, but the story was awesome. There were 4 endings (I never found the 4th, but I saw it on YouTube). And whilst going into this I accidentally found out another part which I will illuminate soon enough. It seems that Facebook is catering to Microsoft with accusations of spam. But I have my response for Facebook ready. Anyway back to the story. 

The new setting I created was set on the citadel. It happens after the slaughter starts and before Shepard makes its entry. In these weeks (optionally months) we are on the citadel. It has the familiar places (Embassy module and the stages from Mass Effect 2, yet there are a few hundred more places. This is a stealth game.

The story is that an engineer had smuggled his family on board, as such it he/she had a hiding place. As the slaughter (read: ascendancy) continues, this engineer needs to sneak its way around. The first thing that needs to be done is to secure water and sustenance. Also oxygen is needed (for the long haul).

Every place has three versions. The dirty stage (with bodies), the cleaning stage (with keepers) and the clean stage. They all have their own issues. 

One of the stages is to secure personnel manifests (with local celebrity locations), locations of interest and local artefacts. 

The races are Asari, Drell, Elcor, Hanar, Humans, Keepers, Salarians, Turians, Volus, Batarians, Geth, Krogan, Quarians, Vorcha, Yahg. The races in bold are the selectable races. In the citadel the Batarians, Quarians, Vorcha and Yahg have no embassy. As such they are the harder species to play. The Quarians (when found) will have information on the Geth. The Turians have data on Vorcha and Yahg and so on. As the game progresses once you have the data, you will face a setting where you have to install monitors all over the station to record what is happening as well as to set alarms so you can sneak your way around the station. You need to get a electronic shroud (a sort of digital cloak), enhance your hiding place as well as creating a few others where you can heal and rest in safety. In normal play the game will ignore several issues, but in hard more it will ‘see’ recording devices and start a hunt for you. Once this starts, you will have to set up a decoy to reset the alarm, the hiding place will be lost forever. 

To set this up it is more then a simple matter. The keepers are thorough in cleaning, as such it will be important to remain invisible. The largest issue I see isn’t merely locations, This place is huge. 

As you can see it is quite big. One idea is to set the stage by race (and most of the game on one of the platforms. It requires one huge LLM with deeper machine learning to create the levels. As I see it, per race you will need up to a dozen buildings (skyscrapers) to cover essential needs for the game. You will have to get the hardware you require for the tasks. The shopping district (ME2) should give you a camera and digital storage. No weapons in this game, however an idea comes to mind to get something like a mining laser (to cut through matter) and tools to open other areas.

Although the game seems straight forward. The idea came to me that the maker optionally have loads of other lore and concept art that they never used in the game. There would be use for them here. Also, other races would have data on humans like the illusive man, Shepard and so on. 

The larger setting I see is how to create a sphere of thrill and suspense that makes a stealth game, a stealth game. You see in ‘cheaper’ stealth games you carry everything making you a bulkier version of you with a backpack 15 times the size of you. So it is important to set the ‘sneak factor’ to find upgrades and better hardware to do the job. The shopping district will have a version one or two of an essential tool, but better versions need to be found. In addition to that, to set the tools to a random location requires a more spiffy setting. Or as they say, to be placed in ulterior locations where we have 1000 places it could be, but with references on items in logs (embassy and security). Then there is the idea of replayability. So as the citadel has hundreds of buildings per pillar, the stage comes that in a second game (with the same race) you will get confronted with different buildings. Similar but not identical, which gives new vibes to the game.

So, whilst we all see what Microsoft is up to with more rehashing the same idea. I took one look at a great game and created (optional) new IP in a day. This is why I see Microsoft as an agent of mediocrity. Now I will accept that this is not enough. More is needed to make this a great game, but I got them this in under a day (it is basically Microsoft IP). So feel free to to wonder what Microsoft is blundering around. If I can get this done in under a day, what are they seeking to rehash the old days? Don’t get me wrong I played Age of Mythology when it released in 2002 and it is a great game, optionally to play again. But considering all the IP they have (or should have) this is not enough. Lets face it they have GREAT IP. The Flight Simulator (2020) has truly become a great game (it was always great). It is a niche market, but for those into flight simulators it is the bees knees. Bioware had many great games. My personal favourite in D&D (Neverwinter nights, 2002) is still one of the greatest fantasy games ever. Both Dragon Age and Jade empires (not my favourites) are good games, where are they now? The problem is that some games need their scope readjusted. To coin an idea, the Multiplayer version of Mass Effect 3 could have been launched on the Xbox series X as a free to play game on that console. And free to play is important is important. They can still offer the loot boxes in the same way they did. For points fought over, or for a few dollars. And there is a market. This game is still played after 12 years. The is one hell of an achievement for a game released in 2012. So why didn’t Microsoft act? I got to the top 1% of players in 2013, there were over 1.2 million players at that point. Considering that the PS5 outsells the Xbox-X by 5:1 I would think that they squandered their markets. And this is a game that can flock hundreds of thousands to the Xbox (in addition to any other system), and no one thought this was a good idea?

As I personally see it Phil Spencer was all about capturing the player base (read: legally stealing), yet the the idea of bolstering its player base by offering playability was seemingly lost to him. And his hard times are yet to come. As I see it I might not have another option but to hand my IP to Tencent technologies. Partially this idea comes as Facebook removed my previous post under the fake guise of spam, which was not the case. The idea has merit as within two years Facebook would lose millions of advertisers. Troll farms create a lot of traffic, but not a lot of commerce, merely fake locations to advertise to, when retailers figure that part out, they will find another place to go to and there is my solution. I saw this three years ago, Whilst everyone was diving for digital dollars any way they could. I saw that the power of it all relies on engagement. And a troll farm only ‘seemingly’ engages. True engagement is seen elsewhere. That is the achilles heel of Facebook and the strength of Amazon (Tencent optionally too). So as I see it Microsoft lost out two times. Didn’t you wonder why Chrome has a market share of 65% and Edge a mere 5%? They aren’t looking in the wrong direction, they aren’t looking in the proper place to begin with. And I added my gaming idea as optional evidence part N. 

A setting overlooked due to the principle of spin. So whilst Microsoft relies on ‘The most powerful console in the world’, Sony and Nintendo are relying on the factor of fun and play and they are winning This year Nintendo had 123,000,000 players. Sony has 118,000,000 players. Now compare that with Microsoft and their 27.7 million consoles. And Tencent technologies is knocking at the door taking optionally more market share away from Microsoft. That is how bad it will get and I saw this 3 years ago. This is why I tried to get the solution to Kingdom Holding (so far no luck). In this environment Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud could score big, optionally the largest gain they ever had (speculative thinking by me). 

My weekend has stated, in Vancouver the day is only starting. Enjoy!

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT, Media, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

July 18, 2024 · 20:53

Doubt it if you want

I got another message last night on me claiming that Google drops stuff and that I was sitting on IP worth billions. They all want the complete rundown, but these wannabe claimers and optional IP thieves want another freebee. I can do you one better. 

The setting is that your phone takes an image of any text and google Translate will translate the image. That was recently. Or better stated I got an advertisement on the matter today and things just clicked in me. You see (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/02/13/looky-looky/) which I wrote on February 13th 2022, so well over two years ago. I gave the setting that we see now. In my version I used Google glasses with a bluetooth link to the mobile. It was a setting to a new Watchdogs game. Now we get ‘the real deal’ that Google can translate it. Now, I am not claiming that they stole my idea. Google does its own thing and there is even a large chance that they never saw my story. So, what am I trying to say? Well I have been in IT over 40 years. I got into IT in the beginning of the 80’s. When you are that connected to hardware, software and IP. Your mind designs one, the other, or a combination. It is a natural setting. So when I stated that Amazon Google et al left billions on the floor, I was not kidding. The article ‘looky looky’ gives the example that I was ahead of Google by two years (more likely one year, the application did not write itself) as such they have a good idea and they made it work. I was venturing in another direction, one that Google rejected. As such only Amazon and Tencent Technologies remained (Apple as a possible third) The fact that Amazon left these billions on the floor as well made me go tsk, tsk, tsk. Now in the given example with the Google Glasses it was the story towards a game, nothing more. 

So consider that I was able to set the stage (a partial design) of what Google is not able to do. Once they connect to google glasses it comes close to exactly what I had in mind. As such I am speculating that I was three years ahead of them. As such I feel comfortable with the setting that 50 million console in stage one and up to 250 million consoles would be possible (any higher is possible, but I remain driven to conservative numbers) and in this in 4 territories are the focal point. Once this goes towards a massive crowd whomever goes that way will see a lot more revenue. Consider that this streaming solution would break the record that the PlayStation 2 had with 155 million consoles, the most successful console in history. I merely did this by expanding the scope of a console. That was the setting that Amazon and Google left on the floor. In a time when they are all shedding jobs, they overlooked in excess of 5 billion a year (based on my numbers) in the first phase. In addition to this recent numbers from the sources give a rise to speculate that it is possible (depending on production) that the 50,000,000 consoles would be reached within a year and that is less than 10% of a population in three regions and there are at least 9 more regions, so I am confident on my numbers. Amazon and Google left that much on the floor (Microsoft is not welcome here). So when you see that I came up with an idea more than two years ahead of Google, wonder what more they left lying around? I am an IT brain. There is every chance that other people have a different focus that people (and me) do not have. So what can you come up with? I merely focus on gaming and IoT. There is a lot of settings that others can see because their focus is there. A year before that I contemplated that these Walking tours on Youtube could be used by Google to consider a new trace. You see wouldn’t a walking tour video be more interesting if a retail client on that tour could place its advertisement in that video (close to where the shop actually is)? Consider that we got in April 2024 “buyers aged 18-34 are 130% more likely to book a showing if there is a virtual tour available for a listing” and several walking tour makers have well over 100,000 followers. That is real money and that is a real population. I mentioned this around 2020, so what did Google do about that? I still get all kinds of nonsense advertisement. So how much did Google miss out on in this setting? I don’t know, there is a lot I do not know on this, but it is possible that Google does not know that either. Perhaps it is not profitable enough. But what was true in 2020, might represent serious cash in 2024. Johnny Strides (Toronto) has 111K subscribers. Several Dubai video’s have almost 900K views. This is a direct population. People with interest in a topic is a population that engages with the maker (by watching and optionally with feedback), so what happened? Was generic pumping of advertisement enough? With so many fake accounts and farms, at some point Google will be requested to up the quality of their ‘population’. When that happens and advertisement can no longer be seen as a direct marketing channel. They will have to change gears, or they can start to up the quality of their viewers. Two simple examples and as soon as the 5G option for real estate starts elevating real estate in a place like Dubai the numbers start adding up. They had in Q1 2024 $29.9 billion. If this solution would only add 1% (I thing it might be as high as 3%), that amounts to an additional $229,000,000 And that is only ONE CITY. So what about London, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco? You still think this is merely a bluff? All directions that Google should have done already and they didn’t. But they were were ‘eager’ to state two months ago “the company is “simplifying our structures to give employees more opportunity to work on our most innovative and important advances and our biggest company priorities, while reducing bureaucracy and layers.” Which is optionally their way of stating that they shedded 12,000 jobs. I just gave them two reasons to not do that, well one reason, they already dropped the Google Stadia, they never saw the 50 million consoles option, which leaves Amazon, optionally Apple and Tencent technology. Are you starting to see that they (others as well) dropped the ball?

All levels of people are rehashing the view of others on AI and IoT (Internet of Things). So why don’t they act what they preach? Oh and my real estate is merely one channel of a much bigger setting. Real estate was merely the most visible one, but not the only one. 

So have a great day and enjoy the upcoming Friday, for me that day is only 3 more hours away.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

July 4, 2024 · 20:03

In the beginning

Two issues came to light, the first one is about an American cop. The BBC gives us (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c72ver6172do) where we see ‘A Bugatti car, a first lady and the fake stories aimed at Americans’. We are given “A network of Russia-based websites masquerading as local American newspapers is pumping out fake stories as part of an AI-powered operation that is increasingly targeting the US election, a BBC investigation can reveal.

A former Florida police officer who relocated to Moscow is one of the key figures behind it.” We knew this, it is nothing new. The Dutch company Trollrensics is actively hunting down trolls and illustrating all the fake news we see (well most of it anyways). This article brought a small art to light that requires actions by both Amazon, Google and Microsoft. You see the BBC gives us “But before the truth could even get its shoes on, the lie had gone viral. Influencers had already picked up the false story and spread it widely”. This is a dangerous setting. Influencers are all about the traffic, they mostly lack integrity and have no clue on the desire to gain followers and their desire to get their golden YouTube sign. 

It is time that the United States and the European Union start to pressure these tech firms to chastise these influencers. If they cannot give ample validation of how they got the evidence how they verified the authenticity they get the full brunt of the consequences. If they are found spreading fake news, their Google rating is diminished, their video’s are all downgraded. And their video’s are skipped in searches unless a person asks for this (former) influencer by name (at which point several people can find the seekers). It is a little crude but the Russians are becoming too much of a nuisance. Oh, and by the way if they follow through on the threat to bomb the Netherlands, I will put my nuclear deterrent (a solution to make a nuclear reactor meltdown) on every BBS in Chechnya. See how they like that condition. Russia made enough enemies, if they have to protect every nuclear reactor in Russia they will lose 15% of their deployable troops protecting buildings they never had to before. Actions are needed and no one is doing them, they are all concerned with the bottom line. You see spreading fake news and false information is not a freedom. In this day and age it is a duty of everyone to not spread fake news and misinformation. Now I understand that not everyone is able to distinguish fake news from real news. I usually seek two official sources (the Guardian, BBC, Al Jazeera, Arab News, Washington Post, Boston Globe, LA Times) there are more but you get the gist. The complication is John Mark Dougan, an American ex-cop. Just questioning. Why would anyone in Florida relocate to Moscow? No matter how valid his reason is. As we are given “an AI-powered operation that is increasingly targeting the US election” we are given the notion that this is all about Trump (my speculation) and it goes from bad to worse. As such I need to do something. I am not a man of action (when you pass the 60 mark that happens) but I have a decent imagination to look outside of the box. Russia has 38 active nuclear reactors. They collectively have 200,000 people working there. Consider that the Russians would need to check them all, secure them all. That implies thousands of troops. Then they need to inspect all new arrivals. It will be a nightmare I reckon. In the mean time they face Chechnya and Pro Ukrainian Russian troops. Plenty to worry about and with the solution out in the open, the Russians get a new danger and optionally their other enemies come out of the woodwork. 

But that is another matter. For now we need to take care of the influencers. They are the first hurdle to stop traction of fake news. In this Amazon, Google and Microsoft could change the rating of anyone spreading fake news, Google especially. Put their ratings to minus 150 and the influencers seize to be a relenting problem. Remove these accounts and their flocks disperse. Now I am not sure if Google can do that. You know that any account holder of a Google/Youtube account has rights. Just changing this on the fly does not go over well. But Google can stop the fake news from spreading, they can also look at the followers of that influencer. But I get ahead of the issues. Something needs to be done and not enough (as far as I can tell) is being done. 

Enjoy the day.

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Media, Military, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,